Abstract

Background

Pollen is a bee-product known for its medical properties from ancient times. In our
days is increasingly used as health food supplement and especially as a tonic primarily
with appeal to the elderly to ameliorate the effects of ageing. In order to evaluate
the chemical composition and the biological activity of Greek pollen which has never
been studied before, one sample with identified botanical origin from sixteen different
common plant taxa of Greece has been evaluated.

Results

Three different extracts of the studied sample of Greek pollen, have been tested,
in whether could induce proteasome activities in human fibroblasts. The water extract
was found to induce a highly proteasome activity, showing interesting antioxidant
properties. Due to this activity the aqueous extract was further subjected to chemical
analysis and seven flavonoids have been isolated and identified by modern spectral
means. From the methanolic extract, sugars, lipid acids, phenolic acids and their
esters have been also identified, which mainly participate to the biosynthetic pathway
of pollen phenolics. The total phenolics were estimated with the Folin-Ciocalteau
reagent and the total antioxidant activity was determined by the DPPH method while
the extracts and the isolated compounds were also tested for their antimicrobial activity
by the dilution technique.

Conclusions

The Greek pollen is rich in flavonoids and phenolic acids which indicate the observed
free radical scavenging activity, the effects of pollen on human fibroblasts and the
interesting antimicrobial profile.